"Mama does not hate you," I said.
"Yeah, she does," he nodded. "She told me so. Numerous times. She said I remind her of him and that she hates us both."
"Patrick, that's crazy talk," I said waving him off, but knowing deep down that he was right. Mama hated our father more than anyone on earth, and she had been very vocal about that fact all our lives. He'd abandoned the family and then died before he had a chance to find peace.
"It's not crazy talk, Leah," he said as he dug through the closet looking for anything that might be salvageable. "It is what it is. I've accepted it, and I've moved forward with my life. I found peace in the priesthood, and I'd advise you to move forward with your life, too. Don't you want something more than just scraping by?"
"Of course I do," I said, coming dangerously close to spilling my feelings about Jack. "I just haven't met anyone who I like enough to consider making a life with. Besides, I'm busy raising a twelve-year-old, in case you didn't know."
"I know," Patrick said quietly. "I'm sorry I left you to raise her all alone."
"You did what you had to do," I said, steeling myself against the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me.
"I miss her, too, Leah," Patrick said as he moved across the room and stood holding his arms open to me. I bit my lip, and then burst into tears as I fell into my brother's embrace. He patted my head as I sobbed, "I know, I know. Let it out."
"I miss her so much, Paddy," I said calling him by his childhood nickname. "I don't know what to tell Riley, and I want to know what happened to her! Where did she go? Is she still alive? Did she just forget about us?"
"I know, Leah," he said as he rocked me like a baby. "For years I've tried to track her down, but she didn't leave much of a trail. The detective I hired said that when the trail goes cold, it's usually because someone is dead."
"I know she's probably dead," I choked out. "But I just want to know for sure. I want to know what happened so I can move on. I'm sick of looking over my shoulder and scanning every face in the crowd for Molly."
"I don't know what to tell you, Sis," he said taking a hold of my shoulders and pushing me away so that he could look at my face. "But we're the only ones left, and Mama needs some serious care. She's a mess."
"It's my fault," I said starting to cry again. "I let her get away with it because I was too tired from working and keeping up with Riley and the house. I should have stopped her. I should have gotten her help, but she was so angry, Patrick."
"It's not your fault, Leah," he said sternly. "Mama made her own choices, and one of them was to keep drinking. That's not your fault or your responsibility. It took me many years of therapy to understand that I wasn't responsible for her hatred or for her choice of how to work out her own pain. She had choices, Leah. There are always choices."
I nodded as I cried against his shoulder and he simply wrapped his arms around me and patted my back until I had cried myself out. When I was done, I stepped back and looked at the bedroom. It was a disaster, and there was no way we were going to salvage anything.
"Look in the drawers and see if there's anything she might want to keep," I said. "Tomorrow I'm calling the guys who haul junk and have them clean this place out before we try to sell it."
"I forgot to tell you," Patrick said as he dug through Mama's nightstand and tossed out old magazines and romance novels she'd kept stashed in the drawer. "We've had an offer on the house. The realtor called and said a buyer saw the pre-listing she sent out and offered the full price, sight unseen."
"You're kidding me, right?" I said as I pulled open the dresser drawers and tossed out clothing that my mother hadn't worn in twenty years. "Jesus, she's a pack rat."
"Leah …" Patrick said.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," I said rolling my eyes with my back turned to him again. "But seriously, Patrick, she kept so much stuff!"
"No, Leah …" he said again. This time I turned around to see that he was standing in the middle of the room holding a handful of what looked like envelopes. "She wrote her."
"Who wrote who?" I said, not understanding what he was talking about.
"These are all from Molly," he said. "She wrote Mama."
"What?" I said not sure I was hearing him correctly.
"These letters are from Molly, Leah," he said as he dropped them on the bed and began looking through them to find the most recent postmark. "They started right after she left, and they seem to end a year later."
"That would be two years ago," I said, excited that maybe they would lead us to our missing sister. "Where is she?"
"It looks like she was in Florida the last time she wrote," he said pulling the letter out of the envelope and finding a blank sheet of paper. He turned it over looking for writing and said, "There's nothing here."
"Is there anything on the other sheets?' I asked as I walked over and grabbed one. It was postmarked Kentucky and inside was a sheet of hotel stationary with nothing written on it. I looked at the envelope and saw Mama's name and our address clearly written in Molly's looped handwriting, but there was nothing else. "What the hell?"
"We should ask Mama," Patrick said flatly. "She'll know what this all means."
"When can we visit her?" I asked.